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My Two Favorite Jokes

2021-09-07 · story · John · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: Pop culture) · mode: Personal essay

John tells his two favorite jokes, a moth at a podiatrist's and a pig with a wooden leg, explains that each both delights and instructs (we are mostly moths flying toward lights; the powerful think eating others slowly is a favor), and asks viewers for their own jokes.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John needs to learn jokes that are funny and a little sad; he tells the moth-and-podiatrist joke

  • ★★ John says he needs to learn jokes that are funny but also a little bit sad, and will tell his two favorite jokes as examples. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John tells the joke of a moth who brings Hamlet-like troubles to a podiatrist and, asked why he came, answers that the light was on. (joke) — 00:00:13

00:00:58 — The punchline, Norm Macdonald, and the moth as an image of flying toward money, status, power or rage

  • ★ John first heard the moth joke from Norm Macdonald, but says it is very old. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ John feels like a person with a soul making free-will-ish choices, but most of the time he is a moth flying toward whatever light he sees: money, status, power or rage. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ Only by understanding that his default is to fly toward those lights can John hopefully occasionally make slightly more conscious decisions. (hedged) — 00:01:25

00:01:32 — Conscious decisions; the joke about Bessie the pig with a wooden leg

  • ★★ John tells the joke of a farmer whose heroic pig Bessie, who fought off a wolf and raised the alarm in a barn fire, has a wooden leg because so special a pig isn't eaten all at once. (joke) — 00:01:40

00:02:30 — The pig joke's resonance about the powerful; Horace's delight and instruct; ask for viewers' jokes

  • ★★★ John likes the pig joke because it is about how powerful people often think they do others a favor by only eating them slowly; mostly a misdirection joke, it has a resonance that informs his worldview. — 00:02:36
  • ★★★ John recalls Horace's line that poetry should delight and instruct; making art it is easy to focus on one, but his favorite jokes, poems and novels do both. — 00:02:50
  • ★★★ John asks viewers to leave in the comments a joke that both delights and instructs, or merely delights, since he needs a laugh right now. — 00:03:08

00:03:26 — Outtake: mini existential crises about the farmer, the system and individual choice

  • ★ In an outtake John says the farmer who eats special pigs slowly is a bad farmer, then wonders if the system is to blame and settles on both system and individual choice, like his stuffed-animals video. (playful) — 00:03:33

Humor (significant)

  • A moth with Hamlet's troubles visits a podiatrist, who asks why he came to him instead of a psychiatrist. — 00:00:58

    “oh, the light was on.”

  • A farmer explains Bessie the pig's heroics but none of them cost her the leg. — 00:02:30

    “oh, you know, a pig that special, you don't eat all at once.”

  • In the outtake John shows his off-camera mini existential crises while still pondering the pig joke. — 00:03:26

    “Don't be the farmer who eats the special pigs slowly and the normal pigs quickly. That's a bad farmer.”

Threads in this video

  • restate · Do people have free will? — John feels like a person with a soul making free-will-ish choices, but most of the time he is a moth flying toward whatever light he sees: money, status, power or rage. (00:01:05)
  • restate · What is art for? — John recalls Horace's line that poetry should delight and instruct; making art it is easy to focus on one, but his favorite jokes, poems and novels do both. (00:02:50)

Mentioned

Central: free will

Also: Hamlet (play) · Horace

Only in the description or credits: Norm Macdonald

Also centred on free will: Free Will Fetish · Intentionally Ignorant: Does Free Will Exist?

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